


Why Are You On Your Own Tonight?

by s0urstark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gaslighting, Guilt, Kissing, M/M, Mind Games, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Ramsay is His Own Warning, Theon-centric, but it's fucked up and used for manipulation, it's theon centric, of course there's guilt, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 08:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20467790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0urstark/pseuds/s0urstark
Summary: It's not allowed to feel real.Why does it feel real?





	Why Are You On Your Own Tonight?

**Author's Note:**

> General mind-fuckery and excessive use of italics from the outset. As with my other fic, this was a brain worm that actually distracted me from the thing I wanted to write.  
Title from I Know It's Over by The Smiths. No apologies to Morrissey.

“You know I’m not here, right? You know I’m not real.” Ramsay’s voice was soft in Theon’s ear, warm breath washing over the side of his face. 

Theon only clung harder to him, fisting his hands in the thin cotton of his t-shirt. If he held on tight enough, it would stay -  _ become? _ \- real. If he could pull Ramsay in to rest inside his sternum, nestle him alongside his heart, maybe he wouldn’t disappear into the dark again, all the sweetness becoming venom.

“I’m just your guilty conscience.” Ramsay always spoke when they were together, never shut his mouth, always whispering and murmuring, and Theon wished for sweet nothings instead of  _ this.  _ “I’m the monster you think you deserve.”

It was hard to block out when Ramsay was so close -  _ not close enough, never close enough.  _ Theon could feel his lips brushing the shell of his ear. But does he want to block it out? Does he want to block out the only support he was? There’s nobody else who touches him like this, even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. He hates it and he craves it all at once.

“Kiss me.” Theon could hear his own desperation, his voice cracking with it, brittle like plate glass.

Ramsay never does. He’ll kiss anywhere but Theon’s lips; up the side of his neck, along the curves of his ribs, across his thighs. Of all the things they did, that intimacy was never allowed. Maybe because that would make it real. It’s not allowed to feel real.

_ Why does it feel real? _

“Please, Ramsay.” There was a lump in his throat, it was hard for Theon to speak around.

“You don’t get to say my name.” Ramsay spat, the light, musical tone giving way to pure spite.

He pulled away for a moment, tearing himself out of Theon’s grip, and  _ no no no no no, if he lets go, everything falls apart, nothing stays real, Ramsay will disappear into the shadows and only come back when he’s ready for the guilt to tear him apart again. _ Theon floundered like a man drowning, desperate hands reaching for anything solid, sobs tearing their way out of his throat  _ because Ramsay isn’t real, Ramsay will slip like smoke through his fingers, a phantom only there to taunt him with all he can’t have. _

When Ramsay allowed it, he could grab a hold and bury himself against his chest. The cotton felt like sandpaper against his cheek, and that had to be real, because when he pulled away, his cheeks didn’t feel wet and he knew he’d been crying, but he could never be sure anymore. 

“I’m sorry. I won’t talk, I’m sorry.” He chanted it like a mantra, the only thing he could be sure of.

If he looked closely, he would see the grin on Ramsay’s face, sharp teeth he was all too willing to let himself get caught in, eyes like frozen glaciers. They would never let him in, they would never show anything. All Theon could see in them was his own reflection, and he didn’t want to see that.  _ If you reflect in something unreal, what do you become?  _

Ramsay cupped Theon’s face, and he snapped his mouth shut with a click, eager to do anything to keep the spectre there.

“You can talk. But if you say my name, I’ll leave.” It was cold, impersonal, and that stung like rum on a wound.

Theon only nodded. He’d agree to anything to keep Ramsay there for a few more minutes.

Ramsay pressed a hand into Theon’s chest, pushing him down against the bed  _ and for something not real, there was weight behind the touch.  _ His hands twitched beside his hands, needing to touch, needing to feel,  _ needing needing needing but not deserving.  _ Ramsay straddled his chest, and that was good, that was the closest to grounding he’d had all night, the weight making it just a touch harder to breathe.  _ Real.  _ Gentle,  _ barely-there, _ fingertips traced down Theon’s throat, and he wanted them to be wrapped around it instead, pushing the breath out of him, just so he’d know it was real when he passed out. That would be alright. Anything more than this unsure act where he toed the line.

“I’m not real. Say it.” The softness was back, and that made everything alright. Tender words would tear him open.

“You’re not real.” Theon echoed obediently.

Ramsay slapped him, harsh and mean, and Theon wanted to scream because it felt numb instead of stinging.  _ At least if it hurts, I know it’s real, I can hold onto pain, I can’t hold onto fucking nothing, this fucking abyss where the sensation could be, please make it hurt. _

“I’m the monster you deserve.”

“You’re the monster I deserve.”

Another slap, another wave of nothing, and that time Theon did scream, a desperate, mindless howl of an animal caught in a trap. If he’d head his eyes open, he would’ve seen the glimmer in Ramsay’s eyes.

“I’m just your fucked up conscience.”

“You’re just my fucked up conscience.”

There was no slap, and that wasn’t any better, because maybe that time it would’ve hurt, maybe that time it would’ve become  _ real. _

Ramsay lowered himself down, and there was barely an inch between them. Theon wanted to lean up and kiss him, press their lips together,  _ let Ramsay bite his lips bloody so he could hang onto the pain, let the blood smear across his mouth so there’d be something left when Ramsay slipped into the night.  _ He didn’t get what he wanted. He never did. There was no such thing as what he wanted here.

Soft kisses against his eyelids, and he sobbed again, tears spiking his eyelashes and rolling down his pale face. It wasn’t fair. Nothing felt enough.  _ Please please please, just for tonight, please just be real, please, I know I don’t deserve it, but if you don’t touch me properly, I might die. _

“I’m not real.” Whispered against his forehead. Ramsay’s smile was just as tangible as the rest of him.

“You’re my conscience.” Whispered into the mile wide gap between them.

“Beg. Beg for me to touch you.”

Theon could barely breathe, and he told himself it was because of Ramsay’s weight on his chest, not the guilt crushing his ribs like a cheap beer can. But he forced himself to speak, because he had to.

_“Please. Fucking please. I need you to touch me, I need something, anything, I can’t stay like this. I feel like I’m going fucking crazy. I’m seeing you, I’m seeing things that aren’t real. Please. Please let me think it’s real. Touch me. Hurt me. You can kill me and it’ll be okay._ _Please._” 

Ramsay’s fingertips traced his lips, and he tilted his head.

“I told you to fucking beg. Open your mouth. Speak.”

Theon cried out like the words were a knife in his gut, noisy, ugly crying that he couldn’t hope to hold back.  _ He heard me, he had to have heard me, I said it, I begged, I told him everything he wanted, why the fuck isn’t he touching me? What the fuck is going wrong?  _

“ _ Please. Please. Touch me. I need it. _ ” He spoke in gasps, his chest heaving as he tried to breathe  _ around the guilt, not around Ramsay’s weight, Ramsay isn’t here, he isn’t real, you’re fucking insane. _

“I thought you wanted it.” Ramsay murmured, getting up off his chest.

Theon reached for him  _ fingers falling through water, through ice water, touching only cold and nothing solid to tether him down.  _ He grabbed onto Ramsay’s shirt, and he took a desperate handful, holding on, his knuckles white with the force of the grip.

“You can’t hold onto me, Theon. I’m not real.” A soft rebuttal, a gentle easing away into the shadows but Theon couldn’t let it happen. If Ramsay left now, he’d drown, he’d die.

“Please.”

Ramsay blinked, still. A lake frosting over. The ice would shatter eventually, Theon would be plunged into the cold, and that would be alright. The cold might make him numb, but it would kill him. He could take feeling nothing if it meant there’d be no guilt too.

“What am I?” Ramsay was clinical, detached. 

“You’re… You’re my fucked up conscience. You're a monster.” Theon knew his lines well,  _ he could play his part, he could go through the motions of feeling anything other than the shame that threatened to eat him alive but never truly sunk its teeth into him. _

Ramsay grinned, and Theon saw his face splitting apart, chunks of flesh held together by threads of crimson, mouth gaping open in a twisted grin, a chasm filled with broken, bloody teeth.

“Why would a monster do what you want?” 


End file.
